


Truth in Advertising

by misura



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Wait," Quill says. "You mean that thing'sreal?"





	Truth in Advertising

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/gifts).



Garthan Saal joins the Nova Corps to serve and protect, and to meet new and interesting people.

Arguably, he gets exactly what he's signed up for.

 

"Wait," Quill says. "You mean that thing's _real_?"

As far as explanations for invaluable and recently stolen works of art somehow ending up in someone's cargo hold go, that's a new one. Saal supposes that means he should award the guy points for originality, at least - not that it's going to make a lick of difference to the penalty.

"Smuggling stolen goods." Saal shakes his head. "Possible accomplice to theft."

"Honestly, I thought it was a fake."

Saal sighs. "Do we really need to do this?"

"They sell these replicas in the museum shop - they're really good. I mean, it's an easy mistake to make. Mind, I didn't know someone stole the original. That's just terrible. Cultural treasure like that. Some people just have no respect for art."

"I'm having the object tested as we speak," Saal says.

"You want me to come back later? I can do that. I mean, my social calendar's pretty busy, but hey, always happy to squeeze in the Nova Corps. Especially a good-looking guy like you."

Saal gets up. "I'm going for a coffee. I'll be back in an hour." He probably won't have the test results back by then, but Quill might be in a more cooperative mood after an hour of considering his options.

"Two sugars in mine, please."

 

It's not as if nobody's ever called Saal good-looking before.

"Are these results confirmed?"

It's not as if attractive people can't also be criminals. Saal's attended several courses, to help him recognize the difference between 'based on my past experience, I feel this person is guilty' and 'based on my subconscious racial prejudices, I am making irrational assumptions about this person'.

The lab people tell him that yes, the results are confirmed. They sound sympathetic, which is nice of them, at least.

 

"Hey man, honest mistake." Quill spreads his hands. Saal's taken the cuffs off. "No problem. No problem at all."

Saal can't quite shake the feeling that he's screwing up here, that he's missing something. In theory, he could call in someone else, have them take a look at the file, the facts and Quill.

"I'm afraid I didn't get you that coffee." Suspects are entitled to food and drink, if they ask for it. The Nova Empire is a civilized place.

"How about you buy me a drink instead?" Quill asks.

 

One drink turns into rather a lot of drinks. Saal makes sure not to pay for all of them.

"Cultural treasure, my ass," Quill says, sounding like a man pretending to be tipsier than he really is. "Ugliest thing I've ever seen, I swear. And trust me, I've seen some ugly things."

Saal feels oddly charmed. He blames it on Quill's looks and the way the man keeps looking only at him.

Chances are, when someone gets drunk, they lose their ability to focus. They get distracted, especially when they're basically just strangers.

"Well, no accounting for taste, is there?" It's not Saal's job to judge art.

"Know what I think?" Quill leans sideways, putting a considerable portion of his weight on Saal. "Do you?"

"I'm as human as you are, Quill," Saal says. From a different planet of origin, probably, but even so.

"You've got pretty eyes." Quill nods solemnly, doing a credible imitation of a man about to fall over. "Real pretty eyes. And a nice ass. Oh, and you should call me Peter."

"You're drunk." There are a number of reasons Quill might be faking his state of inebriation, some of them mostly harmless. "I'll walk you back to your ship."

"No, no, you got me distracted. I was thinking something." Quill frowns. "About your case."

"It's not my case." Peter Quill, suspected smuggler and possible accomplice to theft, was Saal's case. The investigation of the theft itself has nothing to do with him. That's in the hands of people who have much more experience with that sort of thing.

Saal will CC them on his final report, of course, as an item of peripheral interest, but he doubts any of them will bother to more than skim it. There's nothing there, after all.

"I bet you four thousand credits it's an insurance scam," Quill says. Then, he falls over and starts snoring, leaving Saal to consider his options, his responsibilities and the general state of his life.

 

Saal turns the idea over in his head. An insurance scam. An inside job.

It's not impossible, which no doubt means someone has looked into it already. Which means there's no harm in Saal doing the same, provided he does so in his own time.

The idea to go it alone holds a certain appeal, he has to confess. Saal is not an ambitious man, but he enjoys his job. He enjoys being good at his job, and being good comes from being experienced.

"Hey."

Guilty people, as a rule, don't turn themselves in to the Nova Corps the day after they've been released.

"Quill." For a man pretending to be drunk off his feet last night, Quill looks remarkably well.

Saal wonders what his colleagues think of a suspected criminal walking in to see him during working hours, leaning against his desk as if they're old friends - or new lovers.

"Got any plans for tonight?"

"I have a comm, you know," Saal says. He's not embarrassed, but he feels the tiniest bit flustered and it annoys him.

"I guess you forgot to give me your number. Unless you didn't want to give me your number, in which case my feelings are hurt."

Saal stop wondering what his colleagues are thinking. He knows perfectly well what they're thinking, mostly because in their place, he'd be thinking the exact same thing. "Don't you have a shipment to deliver?"

Quill shrugs. "Got caught up in some red tape over at Customs. Guess they haven't gotten the memo yet that I am, in fact, a fine, upstanding citizen under no suspicion of any illegal activity whatsoever."

"And you feel that this is my fault?" Citizen complaints, even from citizens like Quill, are a serious matter. Saal takes pride in the low number he's collected thus far.

"You asked me a question, I answered it." Quill shrugs. "Speaking of which, you still haven't answered mine. You and me on a hot date? Bet that uniform of yours would look great lying on the floor."

"I'm busy," Saal says. "If you have any information pertaining to an on-going investigation, please call the general number for your local Nova Corps HQ and they will be happy to anonymously take your statement. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, we do not offer any reward, monetary or otherwise, for information thus provided."

Quill sighs. "All right, my feelings are definitely hurt now. But thanks. I hadn't heard that information about oh, two dozen times since I got here."

"Go away, Peter."

"You know what, fine. I can take a hint. So what did you say your comm number was again?"

 

"I'm amazed nobody's filed a complaint against you for harassment yet."

"You know what, I'm just going to ignore you just said that. Seriously, man, that's just - someone buys you dinner and a couple of drinks and then gives you the best sex of your entire life ever, and instead of saying 'thank you, Peter, for this amazing experience', you say something like that?"

Saal tries to be honest, most of the time, at least when it counts. "I suppose it was fairly good."

"You - oh, I see. Nope, not falling for that. No, sir. You want some early morning nookie, you can come right out and ask."

"I need to get in to work early so I can make a call to Customs and get this thing about them holding your shipment straightened out," Saal says. He's not sure what happened there, or who screwed up what, but he feels just the tiniest bit responsible and anyway, it's not like he wouldn't do the same thing for anyone, regardless of whether or not he liked them personally.

Which is not to say that he likes Quill, obviously.

"Oh." Quill sounds a little abashed. "That. Listen, don't worry about it. Not your problem."

"It's no trouble at all," Saal says.

 

As it turns out, it's not an insurance scam.

"A classic, really," one of the senior investigators tells Saal. "Find some rich idiots with a hankering for the unique, make it appear the object of their desire has been stolen, and spin them a story how they're getting the one and only real thing while the one on display to the public is only a reproduction."

"Surely that must be breaking _some_ law."

"Not really." She shrugs. "Of course, the buyers tend to be the sort of people who aren't going to bother filing a complaint even if they do find out. I hear the last sap who tried to pull something like this on Tivan managed to get himself sentenced to protective custody for the rest of his life."

"If even half the stories I've heard about Tivan are true, he got lucky." Saal wonders if he's supposed to wish that sort of fate on Quill, and whether or not the fact that he doesn't makes him a morally superior person or just a chump. "Thank you for keeping me informed."

"Welcome. And don't feel too bad about letting Quill go. We couldn't have pinned anything on him, and he's small fry, anyway."

Saal manages a professional smile.


End file.
